


Winter Sports and Frozen Kisses

by LibbyLune



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, First Kiss, Getting Together, M/M, Sledding, very Hallmark holiday themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:00:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28273497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LibbyLune/pseuds/LibbyLune
Summary: When Sanji moves back to his hometown, he's dismayed to be faced with endless snow and small-town holiday cheer.  Will a certain someone help him appreciate the magic of the season?
Relationships: Roronoa Zoro/Vinsmoke Sanji
Comments: 20
Kudos: 136
Collections: Zosan Club - Secret Santa 2020





	Winter Sports and Frozen Kisses

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blondemarimo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blondemarimo/gifts).



> This is my fic for the Zosan Club discord's Secret Santa, and the prompts I got are from Wanda (@blondemarimo)! I hope you like it!

It’s snowing. Sanji hasn’t seen snow for over ten years, and here he is, on the first morning back in the town he grew up in, stepping out the door into six inches of fresh powder.

Well, not powder. This is wet, heavy snow; sticking to his woefully inappropriate shoes in large clumps as he picks his way down the street. As he passes under a tree, a branch gives way under the blanket of glittering white, dumping what feels like an avalanche of cold down the collar of Sanji’s coat.

Somewhere nearby, he can hear children yelling, rife with excitement even though the sun is barely over the horizon. This is the perfect kind of snow for kids - snowman snow, snowball snow, the perfect packable consistency for maximum trouble. Sanji himself spent most of his childhood hiding on mornings like this, but he still remembers how all the other kids loved them.

Damn shitty geezer insisted that Sanji get his own place - not that he was complaining after years spent in the staff quarters of cruise ships - but now he has to trek through this mess to get to the old chef’s old-new diner, and it’s not a pleasant welcome home. He hasn’t even had a chance to unpack his new winter boots.

At least he doesn’t have to drive. His new rental is in the heart of what passes for downtown in this place - a block off Main Street, in a quaint turn-of-the-century home converted into apartments. There isn’t anything taller than three stories for miles, and all the ornate iron streetlamps are hung with pine garlands and Christmas lights.

Sanji remembers this, too. This town celebrates the holidays all month long, every storefront festooned with ribbons and spruce tops, every corner clogged with decorative reindeer. There will be a skating rink plowed out on the lake, ice sculptures in the park, carols ringing from every speaker. It’s a lot. Lately, Sanji is used to throwing a poinsettia on the table and calling it a day. Christmas isn’t really a thing on the cruises Zeff runs.

Ran. They’re back here now, and Sanji is going to have to get used to this again - endless holiday cheer, an ornate Nativity scene set up in the yard across the street, an enormous inflatable Santa blocking his view around the next corner, and -

A snowball to the face. Sanji yelps and almost falls over, feet slipping on the slushy sidewalk as he jumps from the shock. Freezing, wet snow slides down his face, dripping under his scarf and into his clothes.

“Shishishi! Sorry, sorry,” someone laughs from behind him. A guy, somehow still skinny even all bundled up in a down coat, pops up from behind the life-size, light-up plastic Mother Mary in the Nativity scene across the street, and scrambles over the snow piled on the curb. “Zoro! You missed!”

As Sanji wipes melting slush off his face, another guy in a weathered Carhartt peers out around the inflatable Santa. “Shit.” 

The first guy - and Sanji didn’t think you could buy adult coats in that shade of red, it’s practically blinding to look at him - leaps the snow pile on Sanji’s side of the street and skids to a halt right in front of him. “Hi!”

“Hi,” Sanji responds flatly.

“Wanna join our snowball fight?” the guy offers, bouncing on his heels as he flails for his friend to join him. Two more heads pop out of the nearest alley, but Carhartt guy only takes a half-step out from behind Santa, scowling.

“Not really,” Sanji replies with a shiver, pulling his scarf loose to shake the snow out of it.

“But it’s perfect snow!” the guy cajoles, looking Sanji up and down. “Are you new here? I don’t recognize you, and I know _everyone_ -”

“At least introduce yourself,” one of the guys in the alley calls.

“I’m Luffy!” the red-coat guy says brightly. “These’re my brothers, Ace and Sabo, and over there is Zoro!”

The two in the alley wave, and the last guy looks away, crossing his arms over his chest. Sanji blinks, and takes a closer look at all of them, memories of elementary school classrooms floating up in his head. It’s impossible to forget that particular shade of green, now that Zoro has gotten out of the inflatable Santa’s red-hued shadow. Vivid as the pine boughs all around, and just as frosted with snow. Sanji remembers this same rosy-cheeked scowl from the school playground; Zoro never did remember his hat back then, either.

“Wait!” Luffy yelps, pointing an accusing finger at him as Sanji takes off his hat. “Sanji!”

Specifically, Luffy is pointing at his eyebrows. Sanji resists the urge to tug his hat back on, even as Zoro’s head whips back in their direction and one of Luffy’s brothers falls out of the alley.

“We haven’t seen you since you ran away with the old diner guy!” Luffy continues.

“We thought you got kidnapped,” either Ace or Sabo blurts; Sanji can’t tell which is which beneath all their winter gear. These guys apparently take their snow fights seriously - they’re decked out in everything from snow pants to ski goggles.

“Welcome home,” the other adds.

“Some welcome committee,” Sanji says, only half-serious, gesturing at the snow still clinging to his collar.

“Should’ve been paying more attention,” Zoro grunts.

It’s all a little too much, on this first morning back in this place, back in this ridiculous winter weather and small-town cheer. Sanji isn’t going to stand around and be mocked by some guy he used to go to elementary school with.

“Maybe I’ll join in after all, Luffy.” Narrowing his eyes, Sanji bends down to scoop up a handful of snow as Luffy barks a laugh, clearly quicker on the uptake than his moss-brained friend.

It’s not a very good snowball. Sanji’s hands barely remember the motions, and his projectile is lopsided and loosely packed, but that makes it all the more satisfying when it explodes over Zoro’s chest. Gaping at him in disbelief, the man takes a few seconds to react, while Ace and Sabo howl with laughter.

“You’re on, curly,” Zoro vows, lunging for his own handful of snow.

“Sanji’s on my team!” Luffy shrieks, scampering back to the cover of the Nativity scene.

That’s fine by him. There don’t seem to be any rules, and Luffy forgets their supposed alliance within moments, but Sanji is more interested in chasing Zoro down, anyway. What’s with that guy, acting so rude when they haven’t seen each other in over a decade?

It hardly matters. By the time he catches up to Zoro and gives up all pretense of having a snowball fight, the two of them rolling around on the ground trying to stuff as much snow as possible into one another’s clothes, he feels like he never left. 

In fact, everything feels so natural that Sanji can’t help laughing, even when Zoro catches Luffy by the ankle and pulls him down on top of them both. Sanji can’t pretend he resents the guy, not after seeing him like this, all ruddy cheeks and startled laughter as they catch up on years of roughhousing in the span of a few short minutes. It’s fun, the kind of fun Sanji never got to have with kids his age, or adult peers, for that matter. For how familiar it feels, it’s still somehow new and exciting, and Sanji tentatively begins to think that moving back here might not be so bad, after all.

~o~

Sanji is late to his first day of work at the old geezer’s diner. Zeff doesn’t look surprised, offering barely an exasperated huff as Sanji stumbles in the door, with Luffy hanging off his arm and the other three trailing behind them.

The place looks just like he remembers, all retro chrome and red vinyl, with black and white photographs and vintage advertisements on the walls. As a kid, it felt like stepping back in time, or into another world entirely - one filled with soft jazz and leftover fries, and a stool in the corner of the kitchen where none of his family ever found him. One of Zeff’s buddies from the service ran the place while they were out on the ocean, but nothing has changed. It still feels like the closest thing to home Sanji ever had. 

There’s no one here in the middle of the morning on a weekday, so Sanji shoves Luffy into a booth and escapes to the back. The guy has been talking his ear off; maybe if he gets some food into Luffy’s mouth, he’ll shut up long enough for Sanji to get his thoughts together.

“Made friends already, I see,” Zeff gruffly observes, eyeing Sanji’s disheveled state. “See, eggplant, you’ll fit right in, nothing to worry about.”

“I’m not a _kid_ , shit-geezer, I’m not worried about fitting in,” Sanji mutters, trying to re-style his hair. A lost cause, between all the snow Zoro ground into it and the staticky wool of his new winter hat. He probably smells like a wet sheep.

He didn’t fit in when he lived here before, after all, so Sanji isn’t worried about feeling at home now. No matter how awkward returning to small-town living is, it can’t be as bad as his childhood.

Zeff scoffs and throws Sanji an apron. “Then get to work. Get you and your buddies a snack and some cocoa, and thaw out before the frostbite kills your fingers.”

They weren’t friends back when they were children, but Luffy doesn’t seem to remember that. Sanji barely knew him then; an exuberant kid a few grades younger, with older brothers Sanji was bitterly jealous of, when he saw them together during school events. You would think they’d been inseparable, with how enthusiastically Luffy roped Sanji into their snowball fight. Inviting the lot of them back to the diner under the guise of complaining about being late had felt completely natural.

When Sanji returns to the dining room with a tray of hot chocolate and fries, a beautiful woman with luscious orange hair has joined the idiots at their booth. She’s sitting beside Zoro, idly thumbing through a glossy business magazine as he scowls, with Luffy squeezed in between his brothers on the bench across from them. The next table is completely covered in their discarded outerwear, coats and hats and scarves dripping onto the floor.

“Cocoa?” Sanji offers, swinging the tray away from Luffy’s grabby hands with instinct born of years of fending off spoiled, greedy children in cruise ship dining rooms. “And one of you overgrown kids better introduce me to the lovely lady,” he adds.

“Nami,” the lady says, looking him up and down as she accepts a mug. “Nice to meet you as an adult, Sanji.”

Sanji claps a hand over his heart and gives her a bow, ignoring the snickering from the peanut gallery. “The pleasure is mine.”

“See?!” Luffy demands. “I told you it’s Sanji!”

“I didn’t _not_ believe you,” she says, rolling her eyes.

“Dunno what’s weirder,” Ace chimes in, “Someone our age moving out here, or someone who left moving _back_.”

“We were all kids when I left,” Sanji says, sidestepping the fact that he certainly wouldn’t have chosen to move back here, if it wasn’t for Zeff. “How did you even recognize me?”

“Shishishi! Sanji is Sanji, silly!”

“Your eyes’re the same,” Zoro mutters.

Startled, Sanji turns to the man, who frowns at him for a moment before looking away. Sure, Zoro is the only one who was actually Sanji’s age, in his class at school and all that, but to remember his _eyes_ after all this time?

“Not to mention those stupid eyebrows,” Zoro adds, and the tender sprout of fondness taking root in Sanji’s chest goes up in smoke.

“What about my eyebrows?” He demands. “Like you can talk, mossy!”

Luffy’s brothers snicker, and Nami turns back to her magazine with a faint smirk. “Boys,” she sighs.

“Why'd you come back?” Luffy asks, nearly climbing into Zoro’s lap in the process. “Did the old guy really kidnap you? Were you on the run? Nami said -”

“I told you he wasn’t kidnapped,” Nami interrupts.

“Nami hacked into social services or whatever, after you left town,” Sabo tells Sanji. “Found your adoption papers. I didn’t know you could get adopted if you already have parents.”

“Only one,” Sanji mutters. And Zeff didn’t exactly ask Judge to sign the papers; it’s amazing what you can get away with, if you can mimic the signature of a man who doesn’t care what happens to his most useless son. “But - wait, we were in grade school, you’re telling me you hacked into the government’s records -”

“Child’s play,” she smirks. “Literally.”

“Well, we went to sea,” Sanji explains. “The shitty geezer wanted to try cooking for cruise ships. Ended up organizing them himself, but he’s gotten nostalgic in his old age, or something.”

Luffy peers at him, tilting his head to the side and knocking Zoro in the nose. “I wonder if Boa’s been on your cruise; she loves cruises.”

“Who is Boa?” Sanji asks. The name sounds vaguely familiar.

Nami barely looks up from her magazine. “Luffy’s girlfriend.”

“Girlfriend?!” Luffy hardly seems the type, given his rowdy childishness and complete lack of manners, even if his sunny attitude is endearing.

“Girlfriend,” Zoro grumbles. “She’s an e-girl or whatever.”

“Instagram model,” Nami corrects.

“Wait, you don’t mean Boa Hancock?!” Surely Luffy can’t be dating the most beautiful influencer on the entire platform, right?!

“That’s the one,” Zoro confirms. 

Sanji boggles at them until Nami looks up, and sighs at his confounded expression. “He has a pretty popular YouTube channel,” she explains, with an impatient gesture at Luffy, who grins back with a mouth full of fries. “He goes to her events if there’s food, she guest-stars in some of his pranks, they look good in photos, and they go see action movies together on the weekends when she’s in town. Works pretty well.”

“Pretty sure that’s really all they do,” Ace mutters, making eye contact with Sanji across the table. Sanji shakes his head; he can’t wrap his mind around this bizarre reality.

“She’s coming sledding with us tomorrow!” Luffy adds. “Sanji should come too!”

For a chance to experience Boa Hancock’s exquisite beauty in person, Sanji is willing to do just about anything, including childish, freezing winter activities with a bunch of lunatics. “Sure.”

“Yahoo! We’ll pick you up!”

“Make sure you bundle up, curly,” Zoro says, finally shoving Luffy out of his space. “This guy doesn’t mess around.”

~o~

As it turns out, Zoro picks him up alone, pulling up to Sanji’s rental in a beat-up SUV. Fiddling with his phone as Sanji hops into the car, he pulls up a map to their destination, the artificial voice declaring that they’re only fifteen minutes away.

“You need a map to get around your own hometown, mossy?” Sanji jibes, getting comfortable in the passenger seat.

“The streets move,” Zoro grumbles.

That’s so blatantly ridiculous that Sanji can only stare, but the truth is evident within minutes - even with the directions, Zoro takes wrong turns and strange detours, veering through parking lots and dead-end cul-de-sacs. Sanji ends up getting reacquainted with much more of the town than he expected, familiar little neighborhoods and new strip malls alike.

It takes twice as long as it should, and Sanji spends the trip covertly watching his hapless chauffeur as much as the scenery. Between idle teasing, he gets an eyeful of Zoro’s strong jaw, his broad hands, and the corded muscle visible on his forearms where his sleeves are rolled up, coat thrown haphazardly in the backseat.

There’s no harm admitting that the man is nice to look at, even if he’s apparently hopeless with directions on top of being a grouch. There’s something charming about Zoro’s complete lack of pretense - it’s obvious that what Sanji sees is just _Zoro_ , no attempt to put on airs. It’s refreshing.

“Look, we’re almost there!” Sanji cheers with exaggerated enthusiasm, as the line on the map clips around the final turn. “Even you can’t get turned around on a straight road, we’re actually going to arrive!”

“Shut up,” Zoro retorts, taking his eyes off the road for a moment to frown at Sanji, a hint of color high on his attractively chiseled cheekbones. Really, it’s unfair for someone like this to have such good genes. 

“Bet everyone’s used to you showing up late,” Sanji comments, holding on to how anxious he’d been getting, waiting in front of his place far past the time Luffy had given him. He’d been starting to think that he was being pranked, and no one would come to include him at all.

“We’re not late,” Zoro protests, as the artificial voice tells him to turn right into their final destination. 

Sanji isn’t sure what he expected. He knows there are only a few decent hills anywhere close to town; this is corn country, nothing but rolling fields and patches of forest scattered with lakes. Plenty of neighborhood parks have a bit of slope good enough for kids, sure, but Luffy and company are clearly into more extreme stuff.

Now they’re just outside of town, pulling into a brand-new parking lot right along the lakeshore. Prime real estate, and a strange place for a public park, nestled in a neighborhood of expensive lakeside houses. Sanji’s eyes skitter past the equally new sign proclaiming the place “Vinsmoke Park,” and tries not to feel small under the looming shadow of his childhood home.

He knew they’d left town, otherwise Zeff never would have decided to move back here. But even knowing the house is empty, Sanji doesn’t like seeing it rising from the hill above them, like a particularly malevolent memorial to shitty parenting.

The damn thing is a castle, after all. A literal stone castle, here in the middle of nowhere and looking like something straight out of a fantasy novel. Judge had it built himself, so it’s not even old enough to have any kind of character, only blank stone walls with young trees planted throughout the pretentious gardens.

“You used to live here, right?” Zoro quietly asks, as if Sanji and his siblings hadn’t been _the kids who live in the castle_ to everyone else at school.

Sanji nods shortly, and when he doesn’t say anything, Zoro goes on. “The city bought it. Dunno what happened, but Nami said something about seizing assets and embezzlement or something. The historical society set up a little museum thing in the castle, and the local arboretum sends people out to work on the gardens. ‘S nice, if you like that kind of thing.”

It’s a surprisingly reassuring comment. Sanji stares at Zoro, and almost asks what’s gotten into the man - that was more words than Sanji has ever heard him string together, and it was so _nice_ , besides.

He’s startled out of a response by a loud _bang_ against the side of the car - Ace, thumping his mittened hands against the windows. Sure enough, everyone else is already here, milling around the other two cars in the parking lot and pulling a frankly improbable number of sleds out of the back of a pickup truck even more decrepit than Zoro’s SUV.

“We’re coming!” Zoro shouts, knocking Ace onto his ass by opening his door into the man. “How’s the hill?”

“A fresh canvas,” Ace declares, eyes glittering as he rubs his hands together in excitement. 

“Go build your fucking death trap ramps and shit then,” Zoro grunts. Ace shoulder-checks him into the pile of plowed snow at the edge of the lot as Zoro gets out of the car, and runs off, dragging Sabo up the winding path through the quiescent gardens to the top of the hill.

Ignoring Zoro as he flails his way out of the snow pile, Sanji walks over to where he can see Nami and Luffy, chatting with another tall woman. Well, Nami is chatting, and Luffy is bouncing on his heels like a kid, gripping a rainbow-patterned plastic saucer sled.

Sanji’s knees tremble. Boa Hancock, in the flesh… maybe he should stick with Zoro after all; he’s hardly at his most presentable in all this shapeless winter gear, and he’d really rather meet someone so famously beautiful when he isn’t all bundled up like a toddler -

“Sanji!” Luffy yells. “Zoro! Come _on_ , come on, let’s go!”

“You forget how to walk?” Zoro mutters, shoving Sanji forward as he finally makes it out of the snow. “C’mon.”

Feeling his cheeks flush with rage, Sanji tries to make his stumbling look as suave as possible, and joins the others. Nami rattles off an impatient introduction that Sanji barely hears, entirely frozen as Boa Hancock looks down her nose at him and offers her hand.

Maybe it’s a good thing they’re both wearing gloves. Just the idea of touching her hand is enough to make Sanji feel faint, and judging by the way Zoro rolls his eyes beside him, the mosshead can tell.

“What brought you here, my angel?” Sanji asks, voice barely squeaking but still prompting a snicker from Zoro. This town is the last place he would expect to find a famous social media star.

Boa giggles and snuggles up against Luffy’s side, looming over him as he gazes longingly at the hill. “Well, when I saw Luffy’s videos I just had to meet him,” she says, batting her impossibly long eyelashes. “And I love this season; I came by to see the ice sculptures a few years ago and fell in love. There’s nothing like spending the holidays in a small town, so I spend time here when I can.”

She’s… nothing like Sanji imagined. The juxtaposition is hard to process, her immaculate beauty in her designer winter gear and the genuine love in her voice as she talks about small-town traditions and _Luffy_ , of all people. Sanji is almost relieved as Zoro grabs his shoulder to turn them toward the pile of sleds.

“Enough chitchat,” Zoro says, still gripping Sanji’s shoulder. “Let’s get on with this. Don’t you have a new trick to show off, Luffy?”

“Hell yeah!” Luffy crows, charging up the hill with Boa at his side.

Eyeing the pile of sleds with trepidation, Sanji makes sure to grab the sturdiest-looking one he can find. It’s not much, but it’s better than the plastic saucer Luffy chose. As a kid, Sanji fractured half a dozen vertebrae going off a mogul on one of those things - of course it was Yonji who built up all the jumps on the hill, and Niji who convinced him it was still safe to sled down - and laid him up in bed for weeks. Weeks unable to escape his brothers’ jeering or his father’s disappointment, as if ordinary kids didn’t have accidents like that all the time. He barely notices the path under his boots as they walk up the hill, until the castle is behind them, the view of the lake stretching out beyond their feet.

“C’mon, curly,” Zoro mutters, snagging his arm when Sanji can’t quite get his feet to move toward the top of the slope. “Been a while, right? I’ll go with you on the first run, show you how it’s done so you don’t end up in the trees.”

“Show me -!” Sanji squawks, but he stops protesting when they reach the edge of the hill. Somehow it looks even steeper than he remembers, and the treeline seems closer, too. It’s an awfully narrow strip of clear snow to make it onto the lake at the bottom.

About a third of the way down, Ace and Sabo are piling snow into ramps and bumps. Zoro shakes his head, steering Sanji to the other side of the slope. “Luffy’s gonna run one of them over, I swear.”

Luffy is tugging Boa by the hand, not unlike how Zoro has an arm looped through Sanji’s, so Sanji yanks away as the couple approaches. Dragging Boa onto the sled, Luffy curls up practically in her lap in a way that can’t possibly be safe or anything close to how the little plastic disc is meant to be used, and points to the lake like a general commanding troops.

“Let’s goooo! Shishishi, Sanji, Zoro, I bet we’ll beat you to the bottom!”

To Sanji’s surprise, Boa gives a haughty laugh, snuggling up to Luffy and somehow simultaneously giving the impression that she’s looking down her nose at the rest of them. “Of course they can’t beat the two of us, darling!”

Zoro growls and wrenches the long sled Sanji chose out of his hands, throwing it down and pushing Sanji into it. “As if!”

Still in shock that the beautiful Boa Hancock appears to have a competitive streak as wide as the rest of these idiots’, Sanji doesn’t protest. Zoro climbs onto the sled behind Sanji, reaching over the sides to haul them right up to the edge by main strength before pulling Sanji back against his chest and throwing his legs around the outside of Sanji’s thighs.

Sanji grips Zoro’s arm as the mosshead gets ready for that final push, and tries to focus on anything other than the very solid man behind him or the seemingly endless hill they’re teetering over. Luffy cheers, Boa sneers at them while rubbing her cheek against the pom-pom on his hat, and Zoro shoves them over the edge.

It’s slow for a moment, long enough that Sanji lets out a relieved breath. Behind him, Zoro chuckles, wrapping both arms more steadily around Sanji’s body, and then everything becomes a blur of freezing wind.

He can hear Boa and Luffy shrieking somewhere nearby, Zoro whooping right in his ear, and nothing else but the roar of wind as they fly down the hill. Sanji squeezes his eyes closed against the stinging cold and immediately opens them again as the sled goes over a slight rise, lifting off the ground for a moment before landing with a heavy crash. The lake is approaching at blinding speed, their sled racing past Ace and Sabo so quickly that Sanji can't make out their expressions.

They burst through a drift of fresh snow at the bottom of the hill, bumping over the edge of the shoreline and slowing as the sled breaks through the untouched powder out on the lake. As they grind to a halt Luffy and Boa go spinning past them, Luffy still laughing uncontrollably with a small video drone tracking their progress.

Trembling with excited adrenaline, Sanji forces his fingers to release Zoro’s coat, and giggles. Zoro lets go of him, tipping them both out into the snow as he gets out of the sled, and offers Sanji a hand when he’s still blinking on his knees after the mosshead has stumbled to his feet.

“We won!” Luffy crows, pointing to the sled tracks.

“We got to the bottom first!” Zoro protests.

“Shishishi, but we went farther!”

“Everyone knows that’s what matters with sledding,” Boa haughtily adds. Sanji is beginning to see how she and Luffy work.

“Let’s go again,” Sanji finds himself saying. “Rematch.”

Of course Luffy agrees, his enthusiasm carrying him back to the top of the hill much more quickly than the rest of them. Trudging up, Sanji sneaks a glance at Zoro, wondering if he’ll ride with him again. Sanji would like that, he thinks; once or twice more, and then he’ll have gotten the hang of this. That’s all, certainly not an enjoyment of Zoro’s strong arms around him.

He doesn’t have to ask. Zoro points him into the sled when they reach the top, pushing it up to the edge before climbing in and cuddling up even more comfortably than before. “This time you’re going down,” he promises Luffy, leaning his chin on Sanji’s shoulder to say it.

All Sanji can hope is that he isn’t blushing, or at least that no one can tell with the cold, but judging by Nami’s grin as she pilots the drone, he’s giving something away. Whatever it is, Sanji doesn’t have time to worry about it before they’re whooshing out onto the lake again.

After a few trips everyone takes a break, Zoro going to help Ace and Sabo finish their constructions while Luffy and Boa take pictures. Sanji is glad of a chance to catch his breath, collapsing next to Nami as she scrolls through her phone.

“Isn’t that kind of… exploitative?” Sanji tentatively asks.

“Of who?” Nami responds, barely glancing at the couple taking selfies at the bottom of the hill. Boa has a candy bar balanced behind her phone, a surefire way to keep Luffy looking at the camera.

They look like they’re having fun. Sanji shrugs, eyes tracking Zoro instead as he packs more snow against the side of an intimidatingly large ramp.

“Enjoying the view?” Nami slyly asks.

Sanji jumps, looking up to find her watching him, gaze flicking between his surely guilty expression and Zoro’s activity. “The lake is beautiful like this,” he says, knowing how lame it sounds.

“Uh-huh,” she snickers. “Well, if we’re lucky it’ll still be beautiful when Luffy is done, and not splattered with blood. He’s aiming to break some kind of ridiculous flip record.”

Sanji gulps, and makes sure to stay quiet when Luffy asks if anyone else wants to try the jump with him. It goes off flawlessly, and they all stay out until it’s too dark to see, trying even more convoluted tricks and daring one another into stupider stunts. Sanji avoids the jumps and races against Zoro a few times, until the mosshead challenges Ace and Sabo to a race, and they get to share a sled again. There’s no denying that Sanji has enjoyed this part the best.

Luffy’s enthusiasm is contagious, and Sanji easily agrees to join them for the winter festival in a few days, and promises to make time to meet the rest of the friends Luffy won’t shut up about. It seems like Luffy would gladly take over all of Sanji’s time, if he let him. Sanji is exhausted by the time everyone piles back into their cars, dragging himself into Zoro’s passenger seat with a sigh.

“Have fun?” Zoro gruffly asks, once again setting up his directions.

Sanji mumbles something he hopes sounds like agreement, and watches the street lights flow past out the window. He can see Zoro’s reflection in the dark glass, glancing his way every few seconds.

“Good,” the mosshead finally says.

Sanji is too worn out to tease him, and the silence is comfortable as they drive back into town. His rental looks inviting in the darkness, warm light leaking out from behind the curtains. Pausing with his hand on the door handle, Sanji wonders what to say.

“I’ll pick you up for the festival thing,” Zoro offers.

“Uh, sure,” Sanji responds, feeling warm for some reason. Maybe the car’s heater finally kicked into gear. “And thanks for the ride today, I guess.”

“You guess,” Zoro mutters. “Whatever, curly. You’re lucky not to be stuck in a car with Luffy.”

“Sure, marimo, but I bet I’d get there faster,” he snickers, grinning at Zoro’s pouty frown. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Yeah, see you soon,” Zoro echoes, a mildly surprised look on his face as Sanji closes the door.

~o~

Sanji can hardly believe how easy this is, falling in with Luffy and his oddball friends. They stop by the diner every day, so Sanji sees Zoro several times before the weekend of the winter festival. Somehow, he’s still feeling fizzy with nerves while he waits for the marimo to show up.

It’s just easier to be around him with the others there, one of the D brothers to carry the conversation or the lovely Nami to cut the tension. Because there is tension, Sanji will admit that much - he just refuses to examine _why_ , with his life in this town still so new and fragile around the edges, like the curls of frost decorating his window panes.

Zoro is the opposite of that. Even after knowing him for only a handful of days, Sanji can say that much with certainty. Far from the delicate spiraling hoarfrost, Zoro is more like - like the ice on the lake, maybe; sturdy and deep enough to drive a truck over. Not that Sanji wants to drive over Zoro with a truck. Well, only sometimes.

The rest of the time he’s more interested in hitting that in a different way. Which is an equally scary thought, because as easy as it is to say that Zoro is physically attractive, Sanji is finding himself more interested in spending time with him than just the idea of getting Zoro into bed. And that is a risky thought, when he still barely knows this town, and these people. He doesn’t need more weight when his situation already feels like such thin ice.

He’s surprised and a little disappointed when Nami’s sleek, custom-orange car pulls up to his curb instead of Zoro’s dented SUV, and she exits with both Luffy and Zoro in tow.

“Hi, Sanji,” she calls, batting her eyelashes. “You don’t mind walking from here, do you? There’s plenty of street parking up by you, and the lot by the festival is metered.”

Bracing for Luffy’s welcoming tackle, Sanji nods. “Of course not, mellorine.”

“Boa is waiting for me by the _fooooood_ ,” Luffy whines, trying to bodily drag him along the sidewalk.

“It’ll be fun to see the lights along Main Street on the way there!” Nami says.

“The witch is just too cheap to pay for parking,” Zoro mutters. Sanji kicks him in the shin.

The festival is set up just down the street from Zeff’s diner, and it really is magical to walk down the sidewalk as evening falls. Even in the last few days, even more lights and decorations have gone up, and it’s nearly as bright as day under all the twinkling lights and tinsel-strewn pine garlands.

At the end of Main Street, the road finishes at the edge of the lake. An old wooden pier juts out into the water, always surrounded by boats in the summer, from little fishing boats to the historic ferry that does twice-daily tours around the lake. This time of year, the boats are replaced by ice-fishing huts and snowmobiles, strewn all up and down the lakeside along the town commons park. Even Sanji has a few good memories here, sneaking away from his siblings to hide in the park, or those rare times Zeff would buy him an ice cream cone from the chintzy little shop at the end of the street, and the two of them would sit on the pier to watch the motorboats zip by.

This is more formalized than he remembers. Instead of snowmobile tracks every which way, there’s an area of ice closed off with festively lit fencing, food stands and the like lining the shore, with a huge skating rink plowed out on the lake. Holiday music floats through the air, and there’s a dais set up where kids can visit Santa, complete with a live reindeer and shoddily made sleigh.

Sanji steps out of the way to let Luffy rush past, and sneaks a glance at Zoro. “Gonna get down there after him, marimo?”

“Nah,” Zoro dismissed. “Look around, curly. This is date shit; once he catches up to Boa, she won’t want us around to ruin the mood.”

“And she deserves it, after those stunts the other day,” Nami mutters, meandering away. “See you later, boys! I have better things to do than babysit you two.”

Left at the edge of the festivities with Zoro, Sanji takes a second look. Now that they’ve mentioned it, the lights are very romantic, twinkling off the clear ice and fresh snow, and the carols lilting overhead are low and pretty, not the cheesy radio fodder Sanji is used to. Nearly everyone he can see is wandering around in pairs, sharing hot cider and stroopwafels and gingerbread cookies. There’s an arch of pine boughs off to the side, leading into a stretch of the park that Sanji can tell even from here is _absolutely_ dolled up for romantic strolls.

“If this is date shit,” Sanji carefully asks, “what the hell am I stuck here with you for, huh?”

Zoro turns to look at him, wide-eyed; his cheeks are red, but Sanji can’t tell if it’s just from the cold, or if the mosshead is feeling the same flush of expectation that Sanji is.

“Well, we’re already here, might as well have some fun,” Zoro grumbles, starting off so abruptly that he almost leaves Sanji behind. “When was the last time you skated, anyway? You as hopeless at that as you were on the sledding hill?”

“No!” Sanji squawks, rushing to catch up. “I’ll skate laps around a clumsy bastard like you!”

Their bickering comfortably fills the time waiting in line to rent skates, and Zoro raises a skeptical eyebrow when Sanji requests figure skates instead of the heavy hockey skates the mosshead asks for.

“Good way to break an ankle,” Zoro comments, looking nearly concerned as Sanji laces the skates onto his feet.

There’s no reason to tell the idiot that some cruise ships have indoor skating rinks; at least, not yet. “At least I won’t be clomping around like an elephant,” he scoffs, enjoying the frustrated expression on Zoro’s flushed face.

It’s late enough that most of the little kids are off the ice, and Sanji makes a show of wobbling his way over to the rink, leaning heavily against the wall to take the guards off the blades of his skates. Zoro makes an aborted motion, almost like he wanted to offer Sanji a hand, but crosses his arms over his chest and pockets his own skate guards with a scowl. 

Waiting just inside the gate, Zoro opens his mouth to say something as Sanji steps onto the ice, but Sanji doesn’t wait around to hear what it is. Zooming away, he throws a glance over his shoulder and can just make out Zoro’s expression as it turns entirely shocked.

Skating can feel like flying, and that’s what Sanji does, taking a few laps around the rink to remember how before trying any tricks. After a few minutes, the twists and jumps begin to feel natural again, the air beneath his skates lifting him up rather than threatening a treacherous fall.

He expected Zoro to start skating on his own, but after a few minutes, Sanji lands a complicated jump right by the gate, and finds Zoro still standing there, with a dumbfounded look on his face. Gliding to a stop, Sanji looks around.

“What, marimo? Forget how to move your feet?”

“You’re good at that,” Zoro blurts. “You looked - never mind.”

Taken aback, Sanji peers at him as Zoro looks away, chipping the toe of his skate into the ice. “Looked what, mossy?”

“Nothing,” Zoro grumbles, pushing away from the fence. “Didn’t expect you to go swooping around like some kind of Disney-on-Ice prince, that’s all.”

“Aw, I looked like a prince?” Sanji teases, following Zoro back out as he picks up speed. “Were you gonna swoon? Do you need rescuing?” 

“You’re gonna need rescuing, if you don’t shut up,” Zoro mutters, shooting him a red-faced glare.

Sanji snickers and skates a smooth loop around Zoro, adding a little fancy footwork just to show off. The marimo tries to trip him, Sanji _accidentally_ shoves him into the wall, and the moment breaks.

“Race you,” Sanji offers. 

“Let’s see what you can do without your fancy tricks, Prince,” Zoro accepts.

What Sanji can do is win, lap after lap around the rink; Zoro knows what he’s doing, sure, but he can’t beat Sanji for speed. After a while they both start playing dirty, until one of the rink attendants scolds them for fighting on the ice.

“We’re gonna have to get you out for some pond hockey,” Zoro comments. “No holds barred.”

Both of them pause for a moment, breathing heavily against the wall with the attendant warily keeping an eye on them. Watching Zoro swipe off his hat and ruffle a hand through his disheveled hair, Sanji makes a concentrated effort to keep his hands to himself. Damn marimo looks good like this, relaxed and flushed with exertion.

“I could use something to warm up, anyway,” Sanji says, as they return their skates. All the little food stands are looking pretty enticing. Night has fully fallen, but the cheerful atmosphere in the festival area is far from sleepy, full of lights and music.

Sanji buys a little bit of everything, excited to try all the festive treats, and makes Zoro carry it while they wander through the rows of decorated stalls. He catches the mosshead watching him with a bemused look on his face a few times, but Zoro just shakes his head and shoves a cookie in his mouth when Sanji asks if anything is wrong.

“You’re really loving this,” Zoro eventually says, once they’ve finished the treats and picked up styrofoam cups of spiced cider to warm their hands instead. “Thought you didn’t like holiday stuff.”

“Did it seem that way?” Sanji curiously asks. It’s half-true; he doesn’t really care about holiday traditions, the ones people share with families and lovers. After all, he’s never had anyone to share them with, between his shitty family and his life on the sea. Zeff isn’t much for sappy stuff, either. 

Food, though, that’s different. “But it’s fascinating - that woman said her family has been making those krumkake the same way for generations, and the cider is from local apples -”

Zoro snorts into his cup, eyes scrunched up with laughter. It makes Sanji feel kind of special, even if the mosshead is laughing at him. Zoro isn’t a guy who laughs easily, and it’s a pleasant sound, deep and honest.

“You’re gonna be joining the church bake sales in no time, aren’t you,” Zoro chuckles. “You and all those grandmas.”

“So what if I do?” Sanji asks indignantly. “Grandmas are the best people to learn baking recipes from, and they’ll never share if you aren’t friendly. It’s a small price to pay for such wondrous knowledge.”

“Sure,” Zoro says, tossing back the rest of his cider. “Can’t wait to see you in one of those fluffy aprons.”

Sanji doesn’t dignify that with a response, scowling at the mosshead until Zoro rolls his eyes and gestures out into the park, where a scattering of colored lights illuminate the decorated path. 

“Want to go check out the ice sculptures?”

On the way to the entrance, they pass Luffy and Boa, Luffy with an arm wrapped around her waist and all his attention on the plate of cookies in her hands as Boa takes a picture in front of a particularly festive stand. She gives him a ginger snap and Luffy kisses her cheek, the two of them entirely lost to the rest of the world.

“I still can’t believe Luffy is dating Boa,” Sanji muses, as he and Zoro walk beneath the pine bough arch onto the sculpture path. The noise of the festival drops away immediately, feeling suddenly distant as they leave the brightly lit area.

“She’s not that great,” Zoro grumbles.

“I’m pretty sure she’s the most beautiful woman in the entire world,” Sanji points out. It’s barely hyperbole. Boa is magnificent.

“She makes him happy,” Zoro begrudgingly says. “I don’t see it, though.”

“There’s no helping some people,” Sanji sighs, clapping Zoro on the shoulder.

“Not everyone is interested in beautiful women, idiot,” Zoro huffs.

Sanji’s fingers twitch, and he hopes Zoro can't feel it through his thick winter coat. They steal a glance at each other simultaneously, eyes meeting for half a second before breaking apart.

“I just mean, beauty isn’t the only thing,” Zoro hastily adds, spinning on his heel to stare determinedly at the nearest ice sculpture. It’s some kind of… bear, Sanji thinks; proportioned more like a stuffed animal, with a weird hat and haphazard stitching lines carved into it.

“Right, right,” Sanji agrees, wondering why he sounds so breathless. “Enjoying the same stuff, all that.”

Sanji has enjoyed everything he’s done with Zoro, against all his expectations. It makes this moment, all but alone in the garden of sparkling ice, feel terribly charged. The only other people around are couples, barely visible in the dim lights and widely scattered between the fantastic sculptures. All the pine trees in the park are strung with lights, and the vast expanse of the lake stretches black beyond them, like something out of a dream.

Snow crunches beneath their boots as they meander along the path, neither quite able to figure out what to say. Sanji doesn’t want to shatter the moment with an insult, but everything else he can think of is far too impulsive and mushy.

Walking between the decorated trees and sculptures set in dormant garden beds, Sanji tries to work out how to ask - if he even _wants_ to ask - if what he’s feeling is real. Maybe it’s just the atmosphere getting to him, all the romantic shit and pressure to be with someone for the holidays.

“Our buddy Usopp carved one of these,” Zoro comments, breaking the silence. “This one, I think.”

They pause in front of the sculpture, a magnificent sailing ship easily twice the size of Zoro’s car. It’s cresting a wave, each splash of water and individual board lovingly carved, with a funny little sheep’s head as the figurehead. Instead of ropes, strings of lights are draped around it like rigging, making every textured plane of ice sparkle in the colored lights.

“How?” Sanji asks, as if the process of ice sculpting is deeply interesting to him. He’s much more invested in avoiding that heavy silence. “It’s beautiful.”

“Started with a chainsaw, I think,” Zoro shrugs.

“You’re joking.”

Bickering over who knows more about ice sculpting can only last so long. The quiet returns as they loop around the far end of the park, the path turning back toward the festival. Where a rose garden grows in the summer, an entire herd of sculpted deer graze among the covered plants, the dry fountain full of spruce tops and lights.

Gently touching the icy nose of the closest deer, Sanji sighs. “This would be such a great date.”

“What if it…” 

Zoro clams up, and Sanji turns to look at him in disbelief. There’s only one way that question could end. Does the mosshead wish this was a date for real?

“What?”

“What?” Zoro retorts, scuffing his boots through the broken snow. “I mean… I kind of thought... Would you? With me?”

“Would I,” Sanji repeats. “Would I what, marimo?”

No answer is forthcoming, Zoro merely scowling at him before continuing along the path. Sanji hurries to catch up, his heart pounding in his chest. He would, but...

“What if it doesn’t work out?” he asks, catching Zoro’s sleeve. “I’m… we’re… it’s awfully fast, isn’t it? I mean -”

“Why do you already think it wouldn’t work out, cook?” Zoro demands, a challenging grin softening his tone. “You worry too much.”

“Then yes,” Sanji blurts, getting a firmer grip on Zoro’s arm.

The mosshead looks, once again, dumbfounded. “Really? I mean, Nami said I should just ask, but -”

"Why are you so surprised?" Sanji suspiciously asks.

Zoro kicks at a chunk of snow, breaking it to pieces. "Shut up. It's just, you've done all this shit and been all these places, and I know you hated it here as a kid. What've I got to compare to all that."

What, besides clear loyalty, honesty, a near-magical sense for when Sanji's feeling uncentered and how to reassure him... not to mention how thoroughly he commits to everything, from silly sledding tricks to escorting Sanji all night long, putting up with his fussing over every food stand... and he's _hot_ , though Sanji knows that Zoro is utterly oblivious to that as well.

“You’re hopeless,” Sanji informs him, and swoops in to brush his cold lips against Zoro’s cheek. “Ask me out properly, clumsy marimo, or I might take it back.”

“What’s the point of that,” Zoro grumbles, shaking his arm out of Sanji’s grasp to hold his hand instead. “Like you said, this would’ve been a great date. I’m not good at planning this kind of shit.”

“Then I’ll do it,” Sanji retorts, playing up an exasperated sigh. “Will you go out with me, moss-for-brains?”

“Yeah,” Zoro softly says, meeting Sanji’s eyes in the darkness. His silvery-grey eyes reflect the festive lights in flashes of sparkling color.

A shiver races up Sanji’s spine, for once unrelated to the freezing winter cold. If nothing else, he knows that Zoro wouldn’t do this if he wasn’t serious, and that kind of straightforward regard is more heady than Sanji expected.

Holding hands in thick gloves makes it impossible to feel the heat of Zoro’s skin, and Sanji can’t wait to get the marimo inside somewhere warm. Preoccupied by that thought, he hardly notices the rest of the walk, all the remaining sculptures little more than sparkling light in the corner of his eye as Sanji keeps sneaking glances at Zoro’s faint smile.

Noise from the rest of the festival starts to return as they reach the end of the path, concealed behind a few of the food stalls. The final ice sculpture arches over the exit, between two large, heavily decorated pine trees. 

It’s a giant carving of mistletoe, with curling ribbons making the sides of the arch, and no space to get around it. Sanji tries to choke back a laugh, and fails entirely at the embarrassed look on Zoro’s face.

“Did you know about this, dumbass?”

“No,” Zoro sputters. “Fuck, you would’ve given me so much shit -”

“I’m still giving you shit,” Sanji points out. “But you’re right, I would’ve kicked your ass if we had to walk under that thing as awkwardly-abandoned-by-the-rest-of-our-friends _buddies_.”

“And now you won’t?” Zoro warily asks, slowing as they reach the sculpture.

“Nah. Too cold for that. I mean, it’s so cold my mouth is numb,” Sanji says, giving Zoro a lofty grin as he steps closer, sliding his gloves off and into his coat pockets. “You should kiss me before we both get frostbite.”

“That’s got to be the lamest pick-up line I’ve ever heard,” Zoro complains, backing Sanji up against the arch as he shucks his own gloves. Their noses brush, and Sanji rubs them together until a bit of warmth begins to return. Huffing a laugh, Zoro yanks Sanji’s scarf down and presses closer.

Sanji tilts his head to meet him, digging his fingers into Zoro’s layers to brush the skin at the back of his neck as their lips meet. The contact is electric, sparkling bright along Sanji’s nerves like the glittering lights all around. All the winter clothes make each place their skin touches all the more entrancing.

Zoro’s lips are cold and his tongue is shockingly hot, as the marimo slips a teasing lick into the kiss. Sanji gasps and jerks against him, wishing they weren’t in the middle of a public park. 

“Marimo,” Sanji mumbles, their mouths sliding together, the cold that much more bitter against freshly moistened skin, “shouldn’t we -”

A camera flash goes off, blindingly bright, and Zoro jumps back, still gripping Sanji’s scarf hard enough that he’s yanked forward, stumbling up against the marimo’s broad chest with a yelp.

“That’s what I thought,” Nami says, leaning around the side of the nearest food stall with a satisfied smirk. She lowers her phone and watches them fumble apart, as if there’s any hope of regaining their dignity. “Can I assume you’ll take care of getting Zoro home, Sanji?”

“Y - you can count on me, Nami!”

“No rush,” she adds with a wink. “But I’m leaving, so you guys can get back to… whatever you’re up to.” 

Sanji does his best not to meet her or Zoro’s eyes. “It’s getting late,” he says, digging in his pockets for his gloves. It’s a convenient excuse not to look at either of them. “Care for some cocoa at mine, mossy?”

“Is that what they’re calling it these days,” Nami mutters. “Well, that’s a load off my mind. See you guys later!”

Sanji awkwardly waves her off, and hears Zoro shifting beside him.

“I like mine with cinnamon,” the marimo eventually says. “Cocoa.”

Turning back to him, Sanji offers his hand, gripping their gloved fingers tightly together when Zoro takes it. “I’ll make the best cup of cocoa you’ve ever had,” he promises. Even if that’s all, Sanji will consider the night a great success. Worthy of a new holiday tradition, even.

**Author's Note:**

> These were the prompts, so everyone can see where this Hallmark-worthy schmoop came from (I feel like it could have been even more so, but there's only so much even I can handle):  
> -"I meant for that snowball to hit my friend but you came around the corner at the last second and now we're having a snowball fight"  
> -"it's so cold my mouth is numb, you should kiss me before we get frostbite"  
> -"my friends want to skate/ski/snowboard but I don't know how, can you help me?"


End file.
